Dino Thunder: Recollection
by Firebird2002
Summary: Conner Mcknight, now a soccer star at UCLA, begins to remember the future... Disclaimer: All characters are property of Disney. No profit is being made on this fanfiction.


Takes place a week after the events of the SPD episode "History". Conner McKnight begins to remember what the SPD rangers told him about the future...

Recollection

October 27th, 2005 University of California, Los Angeles

Conner McKnight was having a good day- the first really good day in a while. He'd finally settled in at UCLA on the top college men's soccer team in the country, made some new friends in his teammates, and enrolled in a degree that he knew was right for him. For the first time in months, he had a clear knowledge of his future. He was one step away from his dream.

"McKnight!" his coached called from across the soccer field. "Got a minute?"

Conner jogged over to his side. "Sure, coach," he said crisply.

The coach smiled at him, his dark hair gleaming in the sunlight. "You've got talent, kid."

Conner nodded, "So I've been told."

"I heard about those opportunities last year."

Conner's face darkened a little. "The ones I passed up?"

"As our scholarship recipient this year, I seriously hope you don't plan on backing out on me." His shoulders were tight. This guy was not messing around. He was clearly testing Conner, seeing if he had the right answers and the right kind of game face to stay on his team.

"I had some stuff going on, tough stuff, but it's better now," Conner told him, hoping he wasn't lying. "I'm here 100%, coach. You can count on me." He didn't see how that would be a lie. The world seemed pretty handled at the moment- for now at least.

"You could compete professionally with skill like yours. I don't see why you haven't taken the recruiters up on their offers..."

"I have my reasons," Conner interrupted. "I'm not backing out of my decision. I'll play for you, but I'm getting a degree in business and that's it. End of story."

The coach backed off a little. "You've got goals, McKnight, I admire that.. But, why are you so determined to start that damned camp?"

Conner ran his fingers across his chin. "Let's just say I have a feeling it's my destiny."

The coach frowned. "I don't believe in that destiny bull, I just know a born star when I see him."

The former ranger looked down. "Yeah, well I know that I'm meant for something more."

Hawkins sighed. "You've got some balls, McKnight, giving up opportunities like that. You know what those guys get paid." He rolled the tips of his fingers together. "It's a hell of a lot more than those poor kids' mommies are gonna get you."

"I don't care about the money. All I want is to help people."

The coach looked back at him in disbelief.

"Give me a break, coach. You're here coaching me, what's the difference?"

"I don't have a smidgen of the God-given talent you do," he replied, heading back toward the rest of the team, blowing his whistle and calling everyone to huddle.

Conner shook his head. He wouldn't let it bother him. He had goals, he knew exactly what he wanted in life. Didn't he?

"Wow, man,," Ethan said with a groan. "I'm not psychic or anything, but you sound pooped."

Conner laughed into the receiver of the phone. "Just confused, how are you?"

Ethan groaned. "These computer guys up here are hard core," he replied stoically. "Got me on my toes. Times like this it sucks to be a freshman."

Conner looked down at his feet. "I know what you mean."

"How's your girl?" Ethan asked, switching the topic to Krista.

"She's good, got her group up and running," he talked for a while about Krista's new campus activity- something that he knew was borderline Greenpeace.

"You told her yet?" Ethan asked, impatiently.

Conner shrugged, forgetting Ethan couldn't see him. "I'm working on it."

"Damn, you're really asking for it."

"This coming from the guy who only dates freaky nerdy girls who don't shave their pits and wear horn-rims."

"Do not!" Ethan replied, with more denial than he meant to put forth.

"Back off, I'm just kidding, Ethan. I know your heart will always belong to Alyx Vance."

"You're damn strait," Ethan told him quietly. "If only hot cyber-chicks were real, that or I was Gordon Freeman..." He wished suddenly that he hadn't forgotten to pack his Half-Life poster, because it would have looked great next to his cardboard stand-up of Angelina Jolie.

"Ethan," Conner said quietly. "Do you feel different somehow, you know, since we went back to Reefside?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like something happened that we don't quite remember," he said with assurance.

"Sounds to me like someone socked you on the head," the gamer/computer programmer told him with equal zeal.

"Whatever, it's not like it matters."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, realizing that Conner was serious.

"Like someone messed with us while we were there," he replied. "I keep having these dreams."

"What kind of dreams?"

"Like I'm seeing my future."

"That's totally whack."

"This coming from the guy who can make his arm harder than steel?"

Ethan threw himself down on his dorm bed at California Polytechnic Institute and stared at the poster of Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy 7 hanging above his closet. "You mean like ranger freaky, don't you."

Conner sighed, "Exactly like ranger freaky."

Ethan looked over at his window, the trees outside were starting to sway in the wind. "I was totally looking forward to a normal year."

"We're not normal, Ethan." Conner knew that all too well. He still felt like a cheater every time he looked at a soccer ball. "We'll never be normal."

"Have you talked to Dr. Oliver?"

Conner stood up and let Krista into his apartment as she knocked. "Didn't want to bother him, you know, it's not like I have any proof."

"You think you need proof?"

"What do you think?" Conner asked, starting to wonder if he was just insane.

"I think you could use a day away from getting that thick skull of yours smashed with a checkered ball, but I get you, try Kira. If anyone believes you, it will be her."

Conner put down the phone and leaned back against the wall, feeling like he'd just sunk below the surface of a very cold lake.

"What's wrong?" Krista asked him, wrapping her arms around his waist and kissing his cheek.

"Look, Kris, about tonight, the movie, I think I'm going to have to cancel."

Krista glared up at him. "You canceled on the last climate change film I showed the club."

"I'm sorry, Krista. I have things I need to take care of tonight. If you want we can meet up after the meeting."

"You are such a jerk sometimes," she told him coolly.

"Kris,"

"What, do you have something to say to me, Conner?"

"Just wait," he told her. "Give me a minute."

"I've given you a whole year."

"Okay, give me one more second and I'll tell you."

She leaned back against the door. "Fine, what is it this time?"

"Do you remember that time I jumped and saved you from getting smashed by that bulldozer?"

"Conner," she told him impatiently.

"I raced across that grass so fast you didn't know what was going on until I was there on top of you."

"You wish," she said quietly.

He smiled a little at her joke.

"The fact is, I have super speed."

Krista turned the door handle. "Sure you do, Conner. You're just the run of the mill Superman. God, this whole place has made you a raving lunatic." She picked up his Bruin jersey and threw it across the room.

"Krista, I'm not lying." He brushed past her and ran down the hallway full speed. When he came back she stood wide-eyed like a newborn fawn.

"What the hell was that?" she asked, dropping her purse and the stack of flyers in her hand.

"That was me being special."

She leaned back against the wall. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"Dr. Oliver taught me how to harness it, but it's part of me, part of what made me an ideal fit to be the Red Dino Ranger."

Krista shook her head in disbelief.

"When you were kidnapped, I was the one who saved you."

"You've got to be kidding me."

"I wouldn't..."

"You did not just admit to me you are a Power Ranger."

He took her shoulder. "It's a big part of who I am."

"My stupid jock boyfriend is a Power Ranger."

"Hey," he told her with a wounded expression. "I really do care about you."

"Why are you skipping on me tonight?"

"Something weird, I need to head up to see Kira."

"Kira Ford?"

He spent the next half hour giving her the run-down on his duties as a ranger- and how his powers were now as close to extinct as they would probably get. Afterwards, he felt slightly less like a total jerk for keeping it from her, but now he'd opened a whole new can of worms.

"You really are telling the truth," Krista whispered, leaning back against the headboard. She was still in shock, but she'd moved a little closer to him, and wasn't searching frantically for an exit.

"I wish I wasn't sometimes, but I can't deny it. It's who I am, Kris. This is me, the whole package." He stood up and gathered his bag. "And I'm more than a little confused right now, about everything."

She looked up at him. "Go," she told him. "Go figure it out. I'm sure there will be BBC nature shows to watch and small furry animals to save tomorrow."

He leaned to kissed her on the cheek, but she shifted last minute and his lips landed on hers. "You're really not mad at me anymore?"

"That's the most honest you've been with me since we started dating."

As he made his way out the door with her beside him, he yelled to some guys from his team heading out into the evening. They were totally oblivious to the dangers just outside their tight-knit world. He didn't know what to think of them. Envy panged in his chest, but above all he felt sorry for them. They weren't Krista's Superman. They didn't get to save the world.

Kira Ford hated the evenings. She was stuck at work, and her boss was as anti-music as she could get. He wouldn't let her bring her guitar, and he silenced her with a stare every time she moved her lips to hum.

"Hope you don't mind me dropping in," Conner told her as she booked it out of the small office space as soon as her shift was over.

"God, no," she told him honestly. "I've been dying for a good excuse to get out of that place."

He smiled at her. "Not going so well?"

"I think I work for the biggest a-hole in LA." She tried to find something positive to tell him. "How's big jock on campus these days?"

"You just saw me last week," he told her, punching her lightly on the back.

Kira snorted. "Can't a girl ask?"

"I'm fine, told Krista about us today," he told her with nonchalance.

She stopped ten feet from her car. "Really? I didn't know you two were that serious."

Conner shook his head. "I want us to be."

Kira shrugged. "Well, at least you don't have to lie to her all the time anymore."

_At least, _he thought silently.

"What did you want to talk about?" she asked, driving them out into the night.

"When we went back to Reefside, did you feel weird afterwards?" he asked her. "You know, like something messed with something in your head?"

"Other than my mom's cooking?"

"Yeah, Kira, other than that." Her mom was a workaholic and what little homemade food managed to grace their table was far from appetizing.

She shrugged. "Not really, but I've been dreaming a lot more recently." She paused to reflect on the beautiful dream she'd had that morning in Music Appreciation. "I had this awesome dream that I was singing at the Kodak Theatre while my professor was discussing Beethoven."

Conner put his hand to his forehead and grimaced. "That's what I thought."

"What do you mean?" she asked, parking outside the pizza parlor just north of campus.

"Dreams about what we want to do with our lives, really vivid dreams."

"You've got to be joking. What've you been dreaming about? Winning the World Cup or something?"

"No," he told her serenely. "I'm running a soccer camp for underprivileged kids."

Kira squinted her eyes at him. "You want to run soccer camps?"

"Yeah, hence the business degree." He turned toward the window. "It's been my dream since I was a little boy."

"Mine too, I mean singing at a big theatre."

"It feels like destiny, like it's already a reality. I can't explain it."

"Like you've realized it's come true," she said with conviction.

"What's going on, Kira?" he asked her.

"What about Ethan?" she asked, realizing that he had to have seen something too.

"He told me he didn't see anything."

"And you believed him?"

Conner thought about it for a minute. "Not a chance." He pulled out his phone again and dialed Ethan's number.

"Dude, I'm in the middle of a...oh, sorry." Ethan closed the lid on his laptop and sat down to talk.

"What'd you dream about last night, Ethan. This time I want the truth."

"What?" Ethan asked with a mouthful of popcorn.

"Where did you see yourself?"

Ethan thought about it for a moment. "Been dreaming about this program I wrote a lot actually. But the weird thing is, I haven't written it yet."

Conner looked over at Kira, she nodded. They knew something was messed up. Something was different.

"Okay, deathly silence," Ethan said with a tinge of apprehension in his voice.

"Strange thing is," Kira added, "is that I keep seeing a woman in a weird yellow and gray jumpsuit thingy. She has dark hair and brown eyes, and for some reason I know her name is Z."

Conner nodded. "I keep seeing something similar, a guy named Jack, he's African American, shorter than me, dreads."

Ethan shrugged. "Uptight white guy, blue eyes, light brown hair, tallish. Think I heard him say his name was Sky or something like that."

"Who are these people?" Kira looked out the window of her car at the pizza parlor. "I think I remember someone else too, a blonde girl with curly hair."

"Sydney," Conner continued. "She had this power..."

"She could, like, turn her fist to diamond," Ethan finished.

"The last guy was Bridge," Conner remembered. "He wore gloves and never touched anyone."

"They were Rangers," Kira realized. "From the future."

"And we met them a while ago."

"But they wiped our memories."

"I remember it all now," Ethan said quietly over the phone. "I remember how they came here last year after that weird guy with the horns. I remember them wiping our memories, their's too. Then last week, they brought us to the future, and we helped them. They told us our futures, and they had to cover it up. I remember."

Kira looked back over at Conner. "Space Patrol Delta," she said clearly. "They were just like Time Force, but something was different. They were darker, somehow. Like the future wasn't as good for them. There were weird aliens everywhere and lots of people had genetic powers like us."

"2025."

"The Earth won't be the same."

"And neither will we."


End file.
